Please call me.
Please come home.
Leo, I love you. Please talk to me.
There’s a knock at my door. ‘Hi,’ Sheila says. She’s dressed as if she’s spent the afternoon doing yoga. I find this mildly surprising, even though these days everyone apart from me seems to do yoga. ‘How are you bearing up?’
‘I want to die,’ I say.
She considers me for a few moments before smiling. ‘I think you need to speak to Emma first. Are you ready to call her?’
I shake my head.
‘You’re welcome to stay over,’ she says. ‘But you have to let Emma know you’re alive, and you have to meet her tomorrow. Monday at the latest. The two of you have to decide what happens next. You can’t just disappear on your daughter.’
I close my eyes. My daughter.
Sheila comes over and puts her hand on my head again, as she did when I went to sleep. Maybe she wasn’t an interrogator after all. Maybe she worked in a more human department of MI5, if such a department exists.
‘You’ll work it out,’ she says. ‘Leo, I’ve never known anyone love their partner more than you love Emma.’
‘But that only counts if it’s reciprocated, surely?’
After Sheila has left the room I sit with my phone in my hand, staring at the charcoal studies on the wall. I feel hollowed out; an empty space.
My phone starts ringing. Surprisingly, it’s Jill.
Jill is the last person I want to speak to, but there’s a part of me hoping she might be able to tell me that this is all a mistake, that I have added two plus two and made nine.
‘Jill?’
‘Leo,’ she says.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes, fine. I’m just trying to get hold of Emma. It’s really urgent. I tried her last night, she said she’d ring back, but she hasn’t. I must speak to her, Leo. Can you help?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘I can’t. I’m not at home.’
‘Still?’
‘Yes, still. I found out Emma’s been involved with Jeremy Rothschild for years. And I found a message last night in her phone, saying that he was Ruby’s father. And I know you know about this, because I saw your messages too. So, please don’t waste my time denying it.’
Jill is absolutely silent.
After a very long pause, she says, simply, ‘Oh.’
‘For Emma and Ruby’s sake, I stayed the night in the shed. But I’ve gone back out again. I’m not ready to face Emma.’
‘Right,’ Jill says. Then: ‘Sorry. Just for clarification. Are you telling me you’ve left Emma?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m saying I need a couple of days to think, so I’ve gone to stay with a friend. OK?’
‘OK,’ she sighs, and ends the call.
I doubt I will ever understand Jill.
I message Emma, asking her to meet me at the house at
9.30 on Monday morning, once she’s dropped Ruby off at nursery. I apologise for walking out, but admit that I am not handling it, and don’t want Ruby to see me until I’m calmer.
She replies instantly to say yes, and thank you, and I love you. Shortly after, she sends another to say Ruby is fine.
Then that’s done, and it is only ten minutes past five, and I have no idea how to fill the hours before my body will let me check out again.